


But I'm Broken Too (And Spoken For)

by dwarrowkings



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Cinderella AU, M/M, clearly i am insane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-24
Updated: 2012-05-24
Packaged: 2017-11-05 22:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwarrowkings/pseuds/dwarrowkings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, Steve is Cinderella. Who knew?<br/>A Cinderella AU that clearly makes no sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I'm Broken Too (And Spoken For)

Steve is washing the giant soup pot when a tall man with an eye patch shows up in the kitchen. Steve's wet up to his elbows, and most of the front of his shirt is drenched in soapy water, but at least he's almost done with this chore. Only like, seventeen to go.  
He sighs when the guy doesn't say anything, because the silence is almost intimidating. He gives the pot a final scrub and lookover before pulling the plug on the sink and dumping the suds down the drain. He turns on the faucet to rinse it off, but the water doesn't come out, and the pot is suddenly sparkling and also dry - cleaner than the day it was bought.  
He looks in surprise at the guy, because what? and his one eye stares back in some vague facsimile of amusement and disdain.

"Uh... "Hello?" He starts, because he knows they haven't been properly introduced. "I'm Steve," he says.

"I know," the guy replies, and Steve thinks that, had the guy put more inflection in his voice, it would be arch. As it is, the guy gives off the appearance of not giving any shits at all. It's probably true.

"Can I help you?" Steve asks, because people don't normally come down here just for his company. Bruce and Clint do, but that's because they're also servants and need the apparently hilarious view of tiny 'CinderSteve' cleaning the chimney or washing the giant pots. The Stark Expo is hard on everyone in Stark's house.

"No. But you can help me."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't have to, Steve. I need you to finish your chores early tonight, and meet me here" he hands Steve a tiny business card "with your friends Bruce and Clint at five." And, with a sparkle and a dark look, the guy disappears.

The card says Nick Godfury, Fairy Godmother and lists the address as his bedroom. Steve is very confused.

Steve doesn't finish early, and it's almost six by the time he gets back to his room. Darn, he thinks, he didn't get Clint and Bruce to come. When he opens his door, though, Godfury is tapping his foot on the ground.

"Good, you deigned to come," he sounds disapproving and also amused. "For that, you have to wear this." He holds up a small strap of latex, and it takes a moment for Steve to comprehend that this _fairy_ wants him to wear a red latex thong. Good thing he isn't allergic.

"Okay, what am I doing?" He asks, because if he's going to help this guy, he has to know what he's doing.

In response, Godfury pulls out a wand, and then everything seems off, like everything got smaller or shorter or something. He looks at his hands - and doesn't think about how his clothes are suddenly different, because his hands are different, they're bigger, and stronger, and is this his final growth spurt that his mom promised him before she died?

He shifts, and Godfury smirks at him. He notices that the thong is no longer in Godfury's hand. _Oh dear god_ he thinks _I've just been clothes raped by a fairy_.

"Bruce and Clint are waiting for you outside, they're going to take you to your destination, and you will have until midnight - here, i've set an alarm for you on your cell so you'll have 15 minutes to get home - until the clothes magic wears off." He pauses for a minute, and Steve wonders what he's thinking. "Sorry about the size change, that one is permanent."

"What." he says, not really expecting an answer. Godfury rushes him out the door. There's a giant green limousine waiting for him. Godfury opens the door and shoves him inside. Where are --

"Where are Bruce and Cl--" he yells, before Clint is rolling down the glass panel that separates the drivers seet from the back. The whole interior is terrible and purple.

"Hey," Clint says, and that's not weird at all.

"I didn't know you could drive," Steve says, Clint doesn't have a car, he's sure. He lives in the mansion, in the servant's quarters, like the rest of them. There's really no reason to drive.

"Godfury hooked me up," Clint says.

"Hey, where's Bruce?" Steve remembers, and the limousine jerks up, like the whole thing has a hydraulic lift.

"Uh..." Clint says, and looks away guiltily.

"Bruce is the limousine, isn't he?" Steve asks, holding his forehead in his palm. He sighs, it's been a long day. He's tired. His best friend is a giant green limousine. What could possibly be more ridiculous?

Clint hands him a piece of paper.

 _Guest + 1_ it says _to Stark Expo Costume Ball_. No. No, this isn't happening. He's not going to the Stark Expo Costume Ball dressed like-- well, dressed like Captain America, for christ sakes.

The drive is surprisingly smooth even though every so often, the radio cuts to a different channel, and the filthy rap coming out of the speakers switches to soothing classical music. Clint chuckles when it happens, and he guesses that it's an old fight between the two.

When they finally stop driving, the door opens of it's own accord, and Steve thinks Bruce has stunning control over his car-body, but really it's just that someone opened the door from the outside. There are a whole herd of people dressed like Tuxedo Mask, and he realizes they're livery men and footmen and waiters.

It's then that he realizes that he's supposed to go in, to hobnob with the upper echelons of Stark Enterprises and maybe Tony himself, and other various and sundry rich-as-croseus people. Stever will not freak out. He will not.

He goes in, and doesn't trip all over himself, but he stays on the sidelines, the perpetual wallflower, even in his new body which he will just have to get used to because it isn't going away. He is idly thinking about all of the things he will have to do tomorrow when someone walks up to himself and says "Hey."

"Hi," he replies, because he is nothing if not perpetually polite. This is when he realizes that he's talking to Tony Stark, the thrower of this party and holy everloving crap, Tony is going to realize that he's not supposed to be here.

"I haven't seen you around before," and Steve thinks the jig is up, but Tony smirks, and he realizes that Tony probably doesn't know half of the people at this whole party. He calms down, but it's only to realize that Tony is hitting on him.

"I haven't been around here before," Steve says, and Tony's eyes light up, but the smirk stays in place.

"This," Tony starts, grabbing Steve's hand and pulling, "is a good song. We should dance." And Steve doesn't want to dance, he's not good at it, gangly and uncoordinated, but this body seems to have the flow down pretty well.

Tony is pressed up against him, almost grinding into his space, and generally doing things that have never happened to Steve before. Especially not with someone like Tony Stark, who was smart and gorgeous. There's a look in Tony's eye that Steve has never seen directed at him, but is in every romantic comedy ever, when the guy finally realizes that he wants to kiss the girl and he just looks at her, like somehow, if he kisses her, _right now,_ it'll make the whole thing worth it.

Steve blushes and complains that he's hot. He breaks away from Tony and rushes outside. He rips off his cowl, and braces himself against the concrete railing outside, breathing in and out. Right now is not a good time to have a giant crush on your boss. Today is possibly the absolute _worst_ day to have a crush on your boss and find out that you have a Fairy Godmother who is a surly, sadistic black man, and have one of his best friends turned into a giant green limousine.

He's taking huge gulping breaths, trying to calm himself down. Outside, away from Tony is helping make him feel more sane, like this is a night that eventually, he'll be able to forget. That the look on Tony's face won't matter, that his crush isn't stupid and there's something there, in Tony that makes him ache and want and he doesn't deserve anything like Tony ever.

"Okay," he says to himself, and straightens. His phone is vibrating in his pocket, he's got to leave right now, but when he turns, Tony is standing there. Steve shields his face with his hand. "Tony," he says, because he didn't expect him to follow him, he doesn't know why.

"I don't even know your name," says Tony, a little plaintive, like he wants to build on what the music offered, what Steve was willing to put into this night so he wouldn't completely regret this and hate himself forever.

"I have to go," he says, pushing past Tony and through the crowd of the party.

"That's not your name," Tony calls. He's out the door and in the safety of the Limo before he realizes that he left he cowl.

\--

Tony tries every source he knows to find out who the guy was, but none of them know.

Tony knows a lot of sources, and they in turn know a lot more, but still, none of them turn up anything on the guy who came dressed as Captian America.

It's depressing, Tony thinks, that the first guy he's ever wanted to stay, who's cared if they stay or go, didn't stay, and everyone else seems to want to stay and he couldn't care less.

Tony tries not to nitpick at what it was that made the guy go - did he come on too strong, did he talk too much, did he have too much money, did he smell weird? What was it? He tries to be rational and tell himelf that it probably wasn't anything Tony said or did, but something the guy had to do, but his anxiousness won't let him believe that.

It's not like he's in love with the guy. That'd be ridiculous. He'd talked to him for maybe four hours. He couldn't have fallen in love with him. But he would like the chance to talk to him again. That'd be nice.

He's sitting outside - something he's never done before and he doesn't know why, it's gorgeous, when the kitchen guy sits down beside him.

He knows it's the kitchen guy, because his shirt is still wet from the dishes, and he smells like freshly baked bread. He also looks like he just stepped off a runway - like he's airbrushed in real life - and Tony wonders why he hasn't noticed him before.

"It won't do any good," the guy says, and Tony doesn't know what he's talking about. "You won't find him." _Ah_ Tony thinks, _jealousy_.

"What makes you say that?" Tony asks, because while he hasn't exactly been quiet on the looking-for-the-dude front, he's toned it down a lot since he first started asking around.

"Maybe he doesn't want to be found," he says, and then looks like he realizes himself. "I'm Steve, by the way," he says, self consciously. "I work in your kitchens."

"I do know my employees, yes." Tony says, "But you used to be smaller. What happened?"

"I work out," he says, amused. He's obviously not going to tell Tony.

"That wouldn't make you taller." Tony says.

"No, it wouldn't," Steve laughs, and says "I have to get back. I just wanted to tell you to stop looking, because he's gone. He's gone like he never existed." And wow, that's too cryptic for a friendly chat between employer and employee in the garden.

"How would you know?" Tony yells after him, and then it occurs to him. Steve was Captain America. It explained everything. The difference - the Captain had said his fairy godmother had given him his costume - and the fact that no one knows him. Tony briefly wonders about a sexual harassment suit. But no. Whatever happens, if anything does happen, it'll be consensual.

\--

Tony hangs out in the kitchens now. It is starting to bother Steve - he's more hindrance than help, but it's not like Steve can complain, he owns the house. He can do whatever he wants in it.

And if that includes walking around shirtless in the kitchen and eating popsicles that Steve expressly did _not_ buy, then that's his own business. It shouldn't affect Steve at all.

Except how it does. Because Steve has had a crush on Tony since he was a child, and Tony has always been unreachable, unapproachable, unattainable.

But here he is, first thing in the morning, scruffy and still in his pyjama pants, making his own coffee instead of making someone else get it for him.

"Don't you ever get a day off around here," Tony says, and Steve thinks that Tony should know. It's uncharitable, but it's true.

"Tell me when you want to stop eating, and I'll make a week of it." Steve says, snarky like he wants to be.

"I am capable of making food on my own," Tony says, and Steve scoffs at that. He's seen the things that Tony has done to this kitchen. Tony is not allowed to touch the stove. Or the microwave. Or the electric kettle. In fact, the only piece of machinery he _is_ allowed to touch is the coffee pot, because Tony made it, and it only really likes Tony and Steve.

It refuses to serve anyone else.

It's just like Tony to make robotics with personalities. Steve tries not to find it endearing.

"You're not touching my pots," Steve says, off hand, like that's the end of it.

"They're technically my pots," Tony counters, and it's a good point.

"I use them most often. I am also the one who has to clean them. You're not messing them up by putting mercury in them."

"That was one time," Tony says, "One time, and I even bought you new pots."

"You almost gave everyone in this house mercury poisoning. What did you even need it for?"

"I was doing an experiment," Tony says, shiftily.

"An experiment." Steve says, derisively.

"I could always order takeout." Tony says, like it's the next logical step in the conversation instead of a sidestep.

Steve snorts. "No way am I letting you eat that crap."

"You deserve a vacation. Seriously, you're here seven days a week for like, nine hours. At least let me give you a raise." Tony says, and Steve has half a mind to say yes.

"That is bribery, and I refuse to accept it." Steve says, haughtily.

"I could just give it to you, and then there'd be nothing you could do about it." Tony says, petulantly, crossing his arms like a five year old.

"But you didnt."

"No," Tony says thoughtfully, "no I didn't."

\--

"So, are you guys fucking or what?" Clint says, congratulatorily.

"No." Steve says, because that doesn't even make sense.

"Oh my god. Then all that flirting this morning didn't lead to shower sex. I owe Bruce ten bucks."

"You took bets on whether I was fucking Stark or not?" Steve, asks, angrily.

"No. We took bets on whether it'd end up in shower sex or not. Bruce said no."

"But we're not having sex at all." Steve is trying not to be hysterical here. Trying very hard.

Clint pats him on the head. "You're having verbal sex with him."

"I am not." Steve says. "He is my employer."

"And he offered you a week off. And a raise. He wakes up before noon so he can come down to the kitchens and watch you bake bread. You two are frigheningly domestic."

"Shit."

\--

"I'm not sleeping with you." Steve says to Tony the next morning. "If that's what the thing with the raise and the vacation was about." That's the only way he could think to make it make sense.

"No. You're not." Tony says, a strange look on his face, "And that was not what the raise and vacation was about. It was about you working too hard. You need a vacation or you're going to burn out, and then where would I be? Rottting away at In-N-Out trying to get a decent hamburger."

"In-N-Out do not have decent hamburgers." Steve says, because that's all he can say. "This is stupid." He rubs his palm on his forehead, because he's starting to get a tension headache. This needs to stop right now.

"So, my fairy godmother turned me into a super hunk and dressed me up as Captain America and sent me to the Stark Expo Costume Ball." Steve says, and he couldn't stop the flow. The words have been on the tip of his tongue for a while, but he's been waiting it out, trying not to word-vomit them. Puking sucks, and this is no different.

"I knew most of that before, except for the fairy godmother part?" Tony says, and Steve is surprised.

"So, this whole time, you knew it was me."

"Well, about half of the time. I figured it out somewhere in the middle."

"And you kept flirting with me."

"Well, yes. It was more convienent this way."

"Convienent." Steve says, almost blankly.

"Convienent, yes. Now I don't have to choose between the super hot guy I met at this awfully boring party, and the guy who bakes me banana nut bread because he knows it's my favorite." Tony shrugs.

"You are truly ridiculous." Steve says. He's not really comprehending what is going on right now. He's got to be dreaming. Maybe Godfury enchanted his mind and he can't get out of the alternate reality to the one where he's normal - scrawny and lonely and pining.

"Wait until you see my Iron Man suit." Tony says, and no, he thinks. No conjuration could be half as ridiculous as Tony Stark.

He forgets, and hands Tony a cup of coffee. Wonder of wonders, he takes it. "You hate being handed things," he says.

"Untrue. I hate being handed things without proper clearance."

"And when did I get proper clearance?" Steve says, because he doesn't know anyone with that clearance. Only Pepper, and she's been with Tony since before Steve can remember.

"When you wanted it."

"That can't be the only qualification." Steve says, thinking logically. If that were true, then everyone would be able to -- and then Tony is putting his hands on Steve's face, broadcasting what is about to happen. He's giving Steve time to back away. His fingers are gentle, and he's moving slowly. Steve puts his hand on Tony's arm and leans forward, meeting Tony in the middle.

Tony tastes like coffee, and smells vaguely of metal and grease, but his lips are soft, and they're not demanding.

The kiss doesn't deepen, because Tony pulls away. He brushes hair away from Steve's forehead and chuckles "You're fired."

"That's good. I didn't want to have to quit."

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was co-brainstormed with the lovely facetspera on tumblr. She was my roommate at the time. It only made sense. If you see something you like, you should thank her. Seriously.


End file.
